


Seasons of Mortality

by RyMagnatar



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Gen, Second person POV, linear but immortal view of mortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-19
Updated: 2012-11-19
Packaged: 2017-11-19 02:06:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/567836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyMagnatar/pseuds/RyMagnatar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sesshomaru watches Rin grow up, in spring a child, in summer a youth, in fall a woman and in winter an elder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seasons of Mortality

One afternoon it all started, and yet each afternoon is now like another. To you they bleed into each other like blood and rain, swirling together and melding until they were inseparable. Not even the change of seasons detailed one from another. 

There were only four days in your life. There was summer, autumn, winter and spring.

Today it was spring, but yesterday was winter. Tomorrow you know will be summer and after that it will turn to autumn. This cycle is never ending.

You are never ending.

Rin is not.

Spring is when you meet her, wide eyes and dirty feet. She smelled awful. You had a moment of weakness and on that long spring afternoon she found you wounded and nursed her and you found her dead and revived her.

Summer is when she grew tall, a kimono that went to ankles going to knees, bare wrists and split seams. She grew taller and taller, like a little sapling. Her hair got longer and longer, falling in her eyes, around her face. She tended it carefully, to be as yours was. She ran with more energy than before, somehow, and the scrapes that stopped her before don’t even slow her down. 

Somewhere she’s procured a little dagger, keeps it tucked in the sash of her new kimono, green as the grass she runs in and lined with gold like the light of her smile. You are certain you got her these things. You remember a moment in the summer heat where she bowed deep and spoke humbly and held back her tears with a brilliant, grateful smile. 

Autumn is when she grew out, and that little sapling frame became rounded, softened. Gone was the green and now she was wrapped in deep red, red that brought out the warm light in her hair and the duskiness of her summer skin. Red that was in her lips and now dripped between her thighs when the moon rose high and full in the sky. 

That little dagger has become a sword she wields deftly. Her long spring hair has grown longer still, is wild still but for the tuft of ponytail. Her feet are calloused, hardened by dirt and rock and wood but she wears shoes willingly even still. She is a woman. You look at her and do not recognize her.

But the the evening of autumn comes and she laughs as she cooks her dinner at the fire and she timidly asks you to lay with your furs and you think you catch the scent of spring. 

Winter is when she grew wise, with a heavy coat around her, warming her. Her slowly paling face is framed in dark fur that matches her dark hair, blends in with it. She is slow to the sword at her hip and quick to a kind deed. She spends the afternoon weeping by a river, holding onto the bloodied shirt of a man you thought you saw that morning. 

She smiles, but only you see that the light she once produced in such an expression is now just a reflection of the sunlight. Quick to tears, she at first tries to hide them from you and then weeps openly before you. Shame has left her.

Spring is when she leaves you. Her breath is light and sweet. The light that left her last night has returned. She wears gold and green and bright blue. She is the sun, the earth, the sky. There is someone, another, who calls her Sunshine and Light of my Life but he smells unfamiliar. His face is etched into your memory, but his name escapes you. His name doesn’t matter. 

Until, of course, he steals away your light.

Her small hand slips out of yours. 

A kiss is placed upon your cheek. She says goodbye with her words, your honorary always there, always present. But in her eyes and in her smile you see the unspoken bond. 

This is your daughter.

A human.

She slips away in the same life-giving season that birthed her.

And in the summer, you remember your spring child. 


End file.
